Saturday, 25 June 2011

Britain's new Preventing violent Extremism policy fails to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim community...again.

Earlier this month, the coalition government published the long-awaited overhaul of the Prevent policy aimed at combating home-grown terrorism.

Developed in the wake of the 7/7 bombings, Prevent is one of the four strands of the British government’s counter-terrorism policy known as CONTEST. Under the Prevent scheme,
over £80m has been distributed to local authorities, police, community
organizations and youth groups to tackle radicalization, mainly amongst
Muslim women and youth.

Despite some of its successes, the policy
has been criticized as alienating Muslim communities through its focus
on integration and cohesion. Upon taking office in 2010, the coalition
government ordered an immediate review into Prevent.

While this new government had the opportunity to act upon the mistakes of the previous Prevent
policy, it appears once again the revised anti-terror policy will also
alienate those most needed to engage in the fight against extremism.

The Revised Prevent Policy

The Prevent strategy has now been broken down into three objectives:

respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism

prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support; and

work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalization.

The Highlights of the Prevent Review

Community
cohesion activities and work surrounding extremism will be separated,
the former overseen by the Department for Communities and Local
Government (DCLG).

Funding will be prioritized
according to risk rather than demographics. 25 local authorities have
already been identified as high risk areas. However while this is an
improvement, a more realistic approach would be to have local
authorities identify their own threat and risk.

Prevent will
tackle both violent and non-violent extremists. The government is only
committed to working with those organizations that support mainstream
British values. These being values of universal human rights, equality
before the law, democracy and full participation in British society.

Prevent
has been expanded to tackle all forms of extremism such as right-wing.
This will be modified as the threat changes. However, as al-Qaeda
inspired terrorism is still the greatest threat to national security,
this form of extremism will have top priority at present.

Police-community work will be enhanced in terms of security. The previous Prevent
strategy has been successful in building policy-community
relationships. Whether this should be carried out through a
counter-terrorism framework rather than a community cohesion agenda is
questionable.

Channel Project will remain. The Channel
project has been successful in identifying vulnerable individuals and
driving them away from extremist views.

The concept of integration and ‘Britishness’ will once again be a focus for Prevent, but not the sole objective.

Government
is committed to working with key sectors such as charities, health
centers and social services to support vulnerable individuals. This will
involve asking doctors and teachers to covertly ‘spy’ on patients and
students to identify those vulnerable to fall into extremist ideology.

Harsher
measures to combat radicalization via the internet. This will involve
identifying and getting rid of materials which are considered ‘extreme.’

The issues of foreign policy have been sidelined.

More
research into radicalization is to be carried out overseas. While this
has its benefits, research carried out inside Britain’s communities
would be more beneficial to assessing home-grown radicalization.

Evaluation procedures into Prevent projects and funding will be enhanced.

Winning the Hearts and Minds of Britain’s Muslims

While
some positive things have come out of this 116 page review, David
Cameron has missed his opportunity to win the hearts and minds of the
Muslim community.

Under the revised Prevent, there is muddled thinking about those who have ‘Islamist’ views and politically active Muslims who are inspired by Islam.

Should
individuals whose ideas are extreme but not illegal be alienated?
Should Muslims who believe in Sharia law be considered potential
extremists? As believing in Sharia law is an obligation in Islam, would
that leave the entire Muslim population to be non-violent extremists?

This
leaves the policy of categorizing moderate Muslims from those who hold
extreme views to continue as Britain tries to instill a moderate version
of Islam within Muslim communities.

There are also numerous
projects which have been able to help combat terrorism whose funding has
been axed because they do not uphold mainstream British values. Such
examples include the STREET project which has been successful at keeping vulnerable Muslim youth away from terrorism.

The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS),
an umbrella organization for student Islamic societies, has been
singled out as an organization which supports extremism. This is very
hypocritical considering FOSIS have been at the forefront of confronting
Islamist extremism in the form of lectures and debates, one which was recently held at the University College London and attended by many individuals who are involved in the delivery and implementation of Prevent.

Even though the coalition government has indicated its opposition to spying on Muslim communities, under this new Prevent,
local institutions would be asked to identify those most at risk of
posing a threat. And since the greatest threat at present to British
national security is al-Qaeda inspired terrorism, Muslim individuals
will be targeted.

The Reactions to the Prevent Review

No
surprise, in the days following the review, many organizations and
individuals has condemned this new strategy to be a total failure and a
further alienation of Muslim communities.

It appears that once
again government has not widely consulted with those who seek the
knowledge and expertise to effectively offer a more realistic approach
to combat extremism.

While the revised strategy has made some
general improvements, such as separating mainstream community cohesion
work from preventing extremism work and continuing funding for
successful projects, its integration approach to ‘Britishness’ and
expanding and targeting non-violent extremists is counter-productive.

Looking to the future for Cameron and Clegg

In the months ahead, the coalition government will have to carefully outline how Prevent will
be delivered and implemented in order for it to be somewhat of a
success. The issue at stake is how to successfully deliver this strategy
without stigmatizing Muslim individuals. This will be difficult to
establish considering the focus remains on Muslim individuals.

Home Secretary Theresa May indicated that ‘‘the Prevent policy inherited from the previous government was flawed’’ The revised Prevent policy has told us nothing new. It is just as confusing and unclear on how to combat extremism.

It
appears that David Cameron has won this battle in Whitehall with his
vision of tackling terrorism at the forefront of this revised policy.
One has to wonder though, where is Nick Clegg in all of this?

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About Me

Journalist, writer and researcher specialising in issues concerning Muslim communities, community cohesion, radicalisation and counter-terrorism policy
Contributes to the Huffington Post UK and the Independent and hosts a blog on combating extremism